No One Owns Me. That’s the Point.
The Freeholders are not criminals by default.
They are ideologues.
Freeholders reject the Unowned City’s foundational premise: that collective ownership of survival systems is legitimate, moral, or desirable. To them, any system that guarantees life without consent is coercion wearing benevolent language.
They do not want to reform the City.
They want to opt out of it—while still living inside its shadow.
The Freeholders coalesced from disparate movements during the City’s consolidation phase:
Post-capitalist libertarians
Anti-technocratic survivalists
Former corporate enclaves stripped of ownership rights
Radical autonomy philosophers
What unified them was not economics, but consent absolutism.
They argue:
Survival systems remove meaningful choice
Dependency is just ownership by another name
Collective guarantees erase personal responsibility
Where the City sees safety, Freeholders see captivity.
There is no single Freeholder organization.
There are cells, enclaves, and personal domains—some physical, some ideological.
Private micro-enclaves in the Fringe
Black-market infrastructure loops
Individually owned power, water, or data systems
Armed autonomy collectives
Some Freeholders live quietly.
Others believe visibility is the point.
Absolute personal sovereignty
Contracts over laws
Ownership as moral right
Aid is acceptable only if voluntary
They respect self-sufficiency.
They despise dependency—even when it saves lives.
Freeholders do not vote.
They withdraw.
They bypass civic systems
Build parallel infrastructure
Trade exclusively through black markets
Sabotage collective systems to prove fragility
Some engage in ideological violence—not to cause harm, but to demonstrate what happens when collective guarantees fail.
The City calls this terrorism.
Freeholders call it education.
To most citizens, Freeholders are dangerous extremists.
They:
Hoard resources
Undermine shared systems
Reject mutual responsibility
To a minority, they are symbols of freedom:
Proof that autonomy is still possible
Living critiques of enforced collectivism
Media coverage is polarized and constant.
Freeholders don’t mind.
Attention spreads the argument.
Block Councils: Frequent conflict. Councils enforce norms; Freeholders reject them.
Maintenance Corps: Hostile. Collective infrastructure is the enemy.
The Open Ledger: Transactional. Autonomy still requires movement.
Mirror Syndicates: Occasional overlap. Identity autonomy matters.
External Interests: Heavy involvement. Freeholders are easy proxies.
Players encounter Freeholders when freedom has consequences.
A Freeholder enclave collapses after rejecting aid
Evidence of external funding behind “pure” ideology
A Freeholder sabotage causes unintended civilian harm
Negotiating voluntary aid without violating belief
Deciding whether autonomy excuses cruelty
Players may:
Infiltrate or negotiate with enclaves
Expose ideological hypocrisy
Protect civilians caught in autonomy experiments
Choose between forcing help or respecting refusal
Freeholders respect conviction and self-reliance.
They despise compromise.
The Freeholders are deeply divided.
Purists believe any collective structure is tyranny
Survivalists focus on practical independence
Accelerationists want the City to fail publicly
These differences fracture enclaves constantly.
Some Freeholders quietly rejoin the City.
Others would rather die free than live supported.
The Freeholders ask the question the Unowned City tries not to hear:
If survival is guaranteed,
is choosing to live still meaningful?
They offer no easy answers—only consequences.
And in a City built on shared responsibility,
nothing is more dangerous
than someone who refuses to owe anyone anything.